Diane Palmer

October 2, 2006

Breaking the Mold: Romanticism and the Creation of the Super Mom

            It never fails that the picture on the cover of a modern Romance novel includes a handsome hunk of muscle in a white button down shirt (with most of the buttons undone), and a woman who is scantily clad in a dress and is being held up by the wonder hunk and his bulging biceps.  Sadly, this perception of Romanticism is only a half-truth.  While many Romantic novels and stories include the extreme, effeminate character who must rely on the strengths of others (usually the hunky male hero), they also include the heroic female character who not only succeeds but does so with panache and intrepidness. What also must be recognized is that the female heroine usually is a mother or takes on the role of one.  Female characters begin to choose to step out of their established roles and save themselves rather than waiting to be rescued while still keeping in the one traditional role of being “super” mom.  All of these “super” moms in American Romanticism must overcome the new country, the new people, and the new nature surrounding them.  The transformation and struggle is seen in texts such as Mary Rowlandson’s Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, the Iroquois Creation Story, Susanna Rowson’s Charlotte Temple: A Tale of Truth, and James Fennimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans.

To understand the important movement the women in American Romance stories are making, it is important to look back at life before that time period.  Historically, “Since early times women have been uniquely viewed as a creative source of human life…however, they have been considered not only intellectually inferior to men but also a major source of temptation and evil” according to the Women’s International Center (http://www.wic.org).  There were “scientific” studies run to show that women were inferior in all aspects of life from the size of their brains to their muscle capacity.  There is little wonder then that literature reflects these ideals of women being weak creatures in need of a desperate rescue.  American Romanticism then shows that women are in need of rescuing from themselves and not by egotistical men in need of a challenge.  While European Romantics were having women fight back with words, the American Romantics showed that women could fight with words and the strength of survival. 

One of the sources that American writers pulled their female heroine ideas from is the Native American.  In the Iroquois Creation Story, we discover that according to the Indians, a woman is the one who gives birth to creation and to good and evil.  The beliefs of the Native American are not like many religions that assume and contend that our creator is a man.  There is the impression that it is due to this nameless mother’s strength that the Indians were delivered from darkness and evil by the stronger of the twins born to her.  In the introductory note of the Norton Anthology, the editors remark that in the Indian society, “Women owned the property and took responsibility for major decisions of social life…and the image of mother-dominated families is established strongly in the creation legend” (18).  Unlike American and European law where women are not allowed to own property, the Indians show the new inhabitants of America that women are cable, strong, and savvy enough to handle the responsibility and are far from being inferior creatures.   American Romance catches on and begins to show that women are not the property but are the owner of themselves, the earth, and the world.  Motherly feminists are a part of nature; therefore, they have the ability to adapt and over come.

Change never occurs rapidly and almost always involves transitions.  It is in the Romantic Period that the shift begins by showing the opposition between female characters.  While Mary Rowlandson wrote her captivity narrative before the Romantic Movement, her ideas show the progressive change from woman as helpless victim to rebellious mom by showing both the actions of other mother figures and the actions of herself.   In the beginning of her account, the settlement is attacked by the Native Americans.  Mary’s reaction is to gather her children as well as one of her sister’s and escape the house.  While her reaction shows ingenuity and quick thinking against a culture she is not familiar, it is this response in comparison to her sister’s that shows her true strength.  The sister is watching the chaos around her, which includes the death of one of her own, and her only response to the situation is to say, “’And Lord, let me die with them’ which was no sooner said, but she was struck with a bullet, and fell down dead over the threshold” (137).  There is little doubt that many would choose death over suffering, but Mary, unlike her sister, refuses to let go of life until all of her children whom survive are returned to her and her husband’s sides.  It is true valor to choose life and suffering over the easier escape of death.

Physical strength alone does not measure a person’s worth or inner strength.  Mary many times shows her inner strength through her actions during captivity.  During the attack, both Mary and her child are injured.  Eventually, the child dies.  Mary notes “I cannot but take notice how at another time I could not bear to be in the room where any dead was, but now the case is changed; I must and could lie down by my dead babe, side by side all the night after” (140).  Fighting off superstition and society’s convention for burying the dead, she stays with her child, so the babe is not alone amongst those who do not follow the same traditions and the same God. Kina Siriphant-Lara also notes that while Rowlandson knows her child’s death is imminent she “displays her immense love for her injured young daughter and desire for the child’s well-being by making sacrifices in order to keep her alive for as long as possible.”  Inner strength is about fighting against circumstances beyond control while still achieving final goals, and Rowlandson defies her role as a female continually in the pursuit of getting her family back.

The beauty of feminism is the power of choice.  In the case of a mother or mother figure, the choice not only affects the mother but the eventual outcome of the child or children.  In Susanna Rowson’s Charlotte Temple, the choice and the result show alternative motherly instincts.  Charlotte is the beautiful daughter of a well to do family.  She, like many young women, was raised to do as she is told and to follow the rules of society.  Unfortunately, Charlotte is put in the hands of a guardian of a questionable reputation, Mademoiselle La Rue.  Miss La Rue’s personal choices produce a woman who “grows hardened in guilt, and will spare no pains to bring down innocence and beauty to the shocking level of herself” (VII 6).  She does just that by imposing her wickedness on Charlotte.  A new man comes and sweeps  Mademoiselle La Rue off her feet, and she plots to drag Charlotte along.  A Romantic, “super” mom would realize that by siding with a man of questionable ethics, the child would be in danger, and in this case, Charlotte is put in extreme peril.

Miss La Rue and Montraville convince Charlotte to leave the school against her better judgment.  Montraville convinces Charlotte that he loves her and will take care of her.  Sadly, Charlotte becomes pregnant with Montraville’s child and is left alone to face the world.  Many will argue that this shows that Charlotte is weak, but the heroism of Charlotte is not justly seen until the very end of the story.  Charlotte is able to survive on her own with a child through the shame, the poverty, and the cold.  As she lay dying, her father finally finds her and is by her bedside.  There is little time left for Charlotte, so little is said.  Charlotte does not spend her last few moments crying and despairing over her life nor does she beg her father for forgiveness.  Both father and child know that she is an honorable and noble child.  Her worth is shown when with her last breath she asks for her baby, and “it was brought to her: she put it in her father’s arms. ‘Protect her,’ she said, ‘and bless your dying –‘” (XXXIII 13).  With her last bit of strength, she is able to make sure her child and the future of the Temple family will be taken care.  To show the grace of Charlotte, the story ends with the dismal death of Mrs. Crayton, formerly known as Miss La Rue.  Rowson shares her thoughts on the matter of Miss Charlotte and Mrs. Crayton by adding “she [Mrs. Crayton] died, a striking example that vice, however prosperous in the beginning, in the end leads only misery and shame” (XXXV 15).  By applying Rowson’s words of wisdom, it is apparent that Charlotte was the motherly heroine because she happily died in her father’s arms knowing she had done all she could for others and her child, while Mrs. Crayton dies lonely and miserable as punishment for her mistreatment of Charlotte.

While all the heroines so far have been actual mothers, it is in Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans that we see the epitome of the motherly heroine.  Cora is the eldest of two daughters who have both lost their mothers.  Cora has no children of her own but shows indisputable characteristics of a “super” mom regardless of the fact.   After being captured by Magua and his men, Cora is given the opportunity to have Alice and Duncan released if she will marry Magua.  Cora tries to be strong and refuse Magua’s offer but “could not refuse to look upon her sister, in whose eyes she met an imploring glance, that betrayed the longings of nature” (109).  Alice is the child in the situation begging the mother with child-like ignorance to magically fix the situation.  There is no magic solution, and Cora realizes that to deny him would endanger Alice.  She internally struggles as to what she must do. 

Cora saves Alice on many occasions.  While the Indians are savagely attacking the men and women leaving Fort William Henry, the girls are left to fend for themselves.  Alice, in realizing the horror of their situation, faints to the ground.  In a motherly fashion, Cora “had sunk at her side, hovering, in untiring tenderness, over her lifeless form” (177).  It is Cooper’s word choice of “hover” and “untiring tenderness” that reminds us of scenes such as Mary Rowlandson with her dying child or the scene of any mother trying to save and defend their child from the harm of others.  In his 2005 Midterm, Robert Hoffman states that “Humans extended the limits of the individual consciousness in order to experience new mystical thoughts and insights, and these revelations allowed them to rise above the common, everyday experiences of ordinary life.” Cora portrays this idea because she is aware that they are in the middle of a battlefield and recognizes their situation, but still drops to her knees to protect her sister from the horror of man and nature. 

In continuing with Robert’s idea that these experiences allow them to rise above the ordinary, Cora continues to find herself in a position that she must exceed the everyday and make an unusual decision.  Magua discovers the collapsed Alice and the hovering Cora.  He kidnaps Alice against the many aggressive protests of Cora.  Cora realizes that she has only two options: she can stay in the midst of the battle or follow Magua who has her sister.  There is no hesitation in Cora’s decision.  She mounts one of the horses that Magua has obtained and “held forth her arms for her sister, with an air of entreaty and love, that even the Huron could not deny” (178).   Cora rises above the everyday and chooses to relinquish her freedom voluntarily to Magua just so she can assure the safety of her sister.  There is no other sacrifice that can compare to that of the loss of freedom or life to protect a loved one.  Cora does it time and time again for her sister.  Even Alice admits that Cora is more than a sister but a mother to her.

Thanks to American Romanticism and its adventurous nature of pushing and discovering new boundaries, women no longer require the heroic figure with heaving muscles and a horse of white.  It is due to the motherly courage of characters such as the women of the Native Americans, Mary Rowlandson, Charlotte Temple, and especially Cora that we can now expect the “super” mom to burst through the open door or open wilderness to rescue us from hidden dangers.  Perhaps one day, the future covers of Romance novels will show the hunky, muscle man embracing a woman who is holding a child with one arm and in the other hand a hunting knife or some other weapon of defense.  Don’t hold your breath, but it could happen.